Before visiting a country where a foreign language is spoken, a person in the twentieth century would normally try to learn some of the language in advance of the visit, and would also bring written material such as a dictionary to assist the person to translate from one language to another. For example, the Berlitz Company provided such written materials beginning in 1878.
With the advent of new technology in the late twentieth century, language translation became more intertwined with electronic devices. Today, for example, the internet provides many free translation services, such as the “language tools” at www.google.com. Also, many electronic devices can be programmed for similar translation purposes, including devices known as personal digital assistants (PDAs).
Thus, when a person has gone on holiday to a foreign country, the classical approach to using the local language has been a phrase book, but more recently PDA language-modules or translation computers/devices have become available. The flexibility of these approaches is limited, for several reasons. First, one has to know which countries one is visiting, which may not necessarily be the case for business travelers. Second, phrases for all possible occasions are stored, even for occasions or situations that are unlikely to occur. Third, phrases in one version of a language can mean something completely different in another language (e.g. English-UK versus English-US).
It is known to update an application in order to conform with unique requirements of a specific locale, including updates involving language translation. See Matheny et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 5,551,055). However, such methods and devices have been directed toward providing a user interface that is translated to match the user's language preference, rather than for enabling the user to communicate with people who speak a different language from the user. Thus, no solution has been presented for efficiently updating a language translation tool based upon context (e.g. environment).
There is a service for downloading e-books to mobile phones, provided by a company called Eweline. See http://www.eweline.com/ewel.asp?viewID=1519. For example, Eweline Finland has launched a new service for offering even law books to mobile phone users. Downloading the content would occur based on user requests, so that the service does not choke up the mobile phone with the information. One possibility, in addition to providing law books, would be to offer different kinds of instruction manuals, construction drawings, et cetera, and dictionaries might be one kind of manual. However, the Eweline service offers no context-sensitivity, and therefore does not solve the problem described above regarding how to efficiently update a language translation device based upon context (e.g. environment).